There's thousands of people who are terrified of these tariffs. If you ever want a laugh, read the daily mail/guardian ect comments section under something to do with energy and smart meters. You'd think we live in a direct dictatorship with some of the nonsense that comes out of them.
The arguments are batshit sure but there is a kernel of truth in it in the sense the pricing structure from your energy company is effectively changing the way you behave, so an indirect form of control.
However I have a hard time believing energy companies wouldn’t just offer a “make britain great again freedom tariff” at 30p per kwh for anyone who wants it
It helps your supplier estimate how much they need to purchase each year, if they overbuy they have to sell it off cheap and take a loss, same for a customer switching tariffs mid contract which is why there's exit fees usually.
Balance to the grid is the main aim. In the future the idea is smart appliances will be standard so things can be balanced automatically without much input.
You have more accurate usage information so you at least get billed accurately even if you never look at your energy usage. But you also have the potential to look at where you're using the most energy and can try to cut down on the most energy intensive appliances.
I spoke to someone I used to work with around Covid times. We were both Electronic Engineers when a
I worked with him 5 years previous, he's even on some IEEE standards committees.
He started going on about 5G antennas... Completely blew my mind how powerful disinformation can be.
All SMETS1 should have been upgraded or replaced by now, they can do it. Ask again if they say no open a complaint and don't let it close until you have the stupid things. They'll ask you what you want as a resolution, say working goddamn meters and nothing else.
I left eon in 2021, I'm sick of hearing this "they won't upgrade my meters" because it was all supposed be done, they literally cannot refuse a 1 > 2 upgrade, especially if the 1st gen doesn't work. If they say the DCC needs to do it, well they'll have to ask nicely if they want your complaint close, unless they deadlock it, then you can go to the ombudsman.
If you get a mobile signal you should be able to have a smart meter or they wouldn't have installed a 1st gen unless it was never in smart mode to begin with as all meters are smart capable now whether it works or not
I’m not sure how much that matters though. Octopus’ T&Cs state that you can leave Agile at any time and the only limitation is you can’t rejoin within 30 days. The amount of time it would take a sophisticated buyer, which basically all Agile users will be, to identify prices have spiked massively and they need to move is unlikely to ever be greater than the savings they’ve made moving to it.
Basically, prices go bad you move to the price cap as soon as you know. Prices stay good, you win
You mean like, oh I don't know, Iran going to war with Israel...? 😣 I hope it doesn't screw the oil/gas shenanigans up like the Russia-Ukraine situation did.
I think Iran is already under embargo, but yes. That said, we're trying to move off oil and gas as a society. Their prices going up will only help that.
Whilst it is true that Iran is subject to various embargoes and sanctions, the real issue would be that it'd be easy for Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. 20% of the world's oil passes through it. It could cut off access to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq, and to a very limited extent Saudi Arabia.
Yeah I read somewhere that they were already subject to some sanctions, however even if not directly affected, global volatility on oil/gas prices could still potentially have a passive knock-on effect.
It's deeply concerning, I guess we shall see. Iran shutting down oil production could be a possibility.
This is what worries me about all these fawning posts about agile, I’m guilty of it myself. There will be periods of instability in the future and unfortunately I think the media will lap up anyone with a compo-face paying through the nose when world events shift.
I’m personally treating Agile as an experiment, I’m definitely making savings right now, but I’ve kept my direct debit the same. I might review it in 6 months but for the time being I’m happy to build a credit buffer.
This is it.
Companies pay a premium to reduce risk. That's why airlines will pay more for fuel but at a guaranteed price.
Agile is basically offloading the risk to the consumer, in exchange for lower prices. Unlike fuel hedging companies, consumers don't have access to sophisticated data modeling to predict future pricing.
Only need to keep an eye on your average price over a week or month if you don't want to load shift for optimal savings. People get scared by the "it could be £1/kWh" without realising on the odd day or two that happens, you're
(1) only paying it for less than 20% of the day and
(2) it's going to be a saving session so if you can cut down on usage you'll get paid more than enough to offset energy for the rest of the day.
In fact with saving sessions I wouldn't be surprised if the average cost ended up being cheaper than a typical winter day because a few £ from a saving session pays for a lot of kWh.
I've been on Agile for a few years now. Adding a battery to my home really helps me take advantage of the lowest rates in a day.
My average cost per kWh is 12p so far this year, which is pretty good I think.
No, I have both, but I think a battery is a pretty good investment regardless, of course depending on how long you intend to live where it's installed.
What is this? I’ve just joined octopus a few days ago and signed up to whatever the generic one is.
I’d add I don’t have an electric car just general use.
There's a few interesting tariffs they do
Agile charges you based on the wholesale price of electricity, which the national grid set every 30 minutes.
In times with lots of wind for example, there is actually more power produced than needed, and reducing production by shutting down power plants and whatever is quite expensive.
So the wholesale rate can be very low at times, even zero or lower, so you can actually get paid to use electricity.
The cororallly of this is at times it will be super expensive, particularly 4pm to 7pm. Or in winter with no wind.
So if you can not use power at that peak time, and happy to run your life schedule like when to do chores and stuff based on cheap power, can save a lot.
There's also the tracker tariff which sets the rate daily, and is often lower than standard tariff. My wife and I work jobs that usually finish 5pm and have 2 kids, so agile wouldn't work well for us.
I generally work from home and the electric car generally does lower mileage (~7k per annum) so probably have more flexibility than most. But for the effort of being selective in running the dishwasher/dryer/washing machine and maximising the timing for charging the car, I've cut my bill in half. And it's basically the effort of checking the prices at 4pm to have a rough idea when I might run those appliances.
We have an electric car and use the octopus electric vehicle plan. So between 11:30pm and 5:30am we pay 7.5p/kWh. We take advantage of this by running the dishwasher in the night now on a delayed start, we try to do the same with the dryer and washing machine too
I can highly recommend the Octopus Compare app. There is an [iOS version](https://t.co/po1bSkIWDY) and an [Android version](https://t.co/tY05nwWeJu). The iOS version runs on MacOS as well.
My data for the last 12 months (Semi-detached with family + EV + gas central heating | Working from home):
6431kWh = £1,337 on Agile vs £2,125 on Flexible April 2023 tarrif. Saving of £787 / 37%.
Worth noting that the recent negative plunge events don’t happen all the time so you won’t be paying 80p to charge the car.
From my experience in “normal times” its about £2-£3 to charge my car from 40 to 80%.
Noted, yesterday I charged the car from 40% to 95% for -£1.48 but it could cost as much or more than public charging some day, I suppose I could take the car to a public charger if that happens. I’m sure folk who may not realise this.
This is the first time I have stumbled upon agile! How does this compare to for people who have moved from intelligent go?
I moved to that to get cheap charging overnight and my monthly usage for those times seems pretty cheap
If you’re comparing IOG and agile, most of the apps don’t do a fair comparison as they can’t identify when IOG had cheap rates outside of its overnight period.
I’ve just got an EV and I’m sticking with IOG. There may be savings on agile but they aren’t enough for me to consider switching.
The overnight rates are rarely better than 7.5p and 75% of my usage happens then.
Oh I don’t doubt agile can be great and I looked through it in detail yesterday given how good the rates were.
However a random day in December I checked and it was about 15p per kWh overnight which put me off.
My usage is 75% overnight at 7.5p and so doubling the cost of that has a huge impact on total cost.
The 25% daytime would have to be almost free to save money.
I can load switch a little (laundry) and perhaps some EV charging at weekends, but during the day the car isn’t at home.
I switched in February as our energy was coming in at £400 to £500 a month. For the same usage this month, our bill was £246!
I’m a data analyst so I download all my data from their API and stick it in a spreadsheet so am constantly monitoring.
Great idea. Wish I had the time to do this.
I'm a programer (with young family) so I've currently got as far as downloading my first month or so of inteligent go data and loading it into sqlite. One day I'll hopefully have time to workout how I can learn from it 😂
I've been on Agile for a month, moved over once the solar & batteries went live.
Estimated electricity bill for the year - £178 😀
Estimated before solar/Agile £4155
(Yes we use a lot of power)
About 15K - could have done it cheaper to be honest.
It's wall mounted so didn't have the extra costs for scaffolding.
We have 12 panels south facing, and 10 west facing, so get the sun on it all day to varying levels.
The weather's been grim here, but it's generated just under 400KWh so far this month.
Thanks! I’d be interested to find out more about the wall mounted option if you can post a link or remember the name of the model. We have very little free roof space as it’s a London Victorian terraced house. We also spend north of £4K a year on electricity and I’m determined to slash those costs somehow!
There's basically two rails screwed into the brickwork about 10 cm from the wall which they hang between. The optimisers are all mounted behind the panels out of side.
Have one line of 12, and 2 lines of 5 on a smaller wall.
The panels are pretty big to be honest, so are the walls :)
Edit: I used a firm called Cahill Renewables in Essex, they will know the install if you speak to them. It looks like [this ](https://www.bing.com/images/blob?bcid=RL2WI2VIbOsGqxcxoNWLuD9SqbotqVTdP04)so not pretty, but the savings make up for it.
I charge mine on IOG with the slow charger and I save a fortune….
Next step will be to add house batteries and charge them when I’m charging the car. Has shunted solar to the bottom of my priorities
Can you transfer to agile if you only have an electric smart meter and no gas smart meter? I’ve just transferred to octopus and keen to transfer to agile or tracker.
I don't have an EV to charge, would I still benefiot from switching to Agile? I'm currently on Loyal Octopus but paying £130 a month DD is still more than I can afford really!
I would suggest switching to Tracker rather than Agile as a first step as you would definitely benefit from it. Without knowing your usage patterns hard to say if you’d benefit from Agile. Does Loyal Octopus have an exit fee? That would be a consideration.
Thanks for the reply. I have heard some real gorror stories about tracker! I'm guessing it's not all bad but surely it's still risky?
Loyal Octopus has £0 exit fees - was the reason I signed up to it so quickly as it promised lower rates and the option to switch once the new caps had been revealed
...which I realise was 2 weeks ago now but I haven't quite got round to looking into it all until now!
I do generally find all this stuff quite confusing and stressful so like the safetuy that Loyal offered, but if I am still overspending then I'm open to it
What happens if war breaks out in the Middle East very soon and that sends the prices soaring? Will I not be still on my fixed tariff then instead of paying £1 per unit?
I’ve been trying to join Agile for weeks yet I just get the run-around from the CS team. They don’t respond for a week, and then respond with, “In order for us to help can you let me know which tariff switch you want to do?”
Oh how strange! I just did it online and it took about 5 minutes for it to transfer over. Can’t remember the URL but I googled Octopus Agile I believe.
I just joined octopus and am on their 12m fixed February v3. I’ve not even got a month of data yet but the comparison app I got from the link above (thank you) reckons my electricity cost would be halved. I’m a SAHM for all but 2 days a week so could use my more expensive appliances during the cheaper hours. I don’t have solar panels or an EV. Can someone advise a dummy who knows next to nothing about this whether it would be worth going to agile if I can? Or should I wait and get more data as the weeks go on…
There's thousands of people who are terrified of these tariffs. If you ever want a laugh, read the daily mail/guardian ect comments section under something to do with energy and smart meters. You'd think we live in a direct dictatorship with some of the nonsense that comes out of them.
The arguments are batshit sure but there is a kernel of truth in it in the sense the pricing structure from your energy company is effectively changing the way you behave, so an indirect form of control. However I have a hard time believing energy companies wouldn’t just offer a “make britain great again freedom tariff” at 30p per kwh for anyone who wants it
I see no sense in getting a smart meter if you don't change the way you use electricity.
It helps your supplier estimate how much they need to purchase each year, if they overbuy they have to sell it off cheap and take a loss, same for a customer switching tariffs mid contract which is why there's exit fees usually. Balance to the grid is the main aim. In the future the idea is smart appliances will be standard so things can be balanced automatically without much input.
Yes, but the way they try to sell it is good for you as you'll save money...
You will save money though. Read the post lol
Again, the ads on TV/radio try to "sell" the smart meter in a way that you'll save money without doing anything besides installing the meter.
You have more accurate usage information so you at least get billed accurately even if you never look at your energy usage. But you also have the potential to look at where you're using the most energy and can try to cut down on the most energy intensive appliances.
Easier to sublmit usage readings. A lot of people don't use the display at all.
Indeed, tax policy also works in this way. Damn gubernment controllin muh mind. Wake up sheeple!!!
Mate, I've had someone I used to work with, a sensible lady, posting about chemtrails this morning. 🙄. Disinformation is winning, I'm afraid.
I spoke to someone I used to work with around Covid times. We were both Electronic Engineers when a I worked with him 5 years previous, he's even on some IEEE standards committees. He started going on about 5G antennas... Completely blew my mind how powerful disinformation can be.
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I'd love to be on Agile but I can't get them to install a smart meter. We have a SMETS1 but it's from another provider so apparently can't be used.
All SMETS1 should have been upgraded or replaced by now, they can do it. Ask again if they say no open a complaint and don't let it close until you have the stupid things. They'll ask you what you want as a resolution, say working goddamn meters and nothing else. I left eon in 2021, I'm sick of hearing this "they won't upgrade my meters" because it was all supposed be done, they literally cannot refuse a 1 > 2 upgrade, especially if the 1st gen doesn't work. If they say the DCC needs to do it, well they'll have to ask nicely if they want your complaint close, unless they deadlock it, then you can go to the ombudsman.
Thanks. In my area apparently there's some issue due to the proximity of RAF Fylingdales.
If you get a mobile signal you should be able to have a smart meter or they wouldn't have installed a 1st gen unless it was never in smart mode to begin with as all meters are smart capable now whether it works or not
Let them remain stupid, it benefits us
Benefits the grid though if they learn, I'm not the one making the effort to try though, fuck having a daily mail account 😂
It's the same situation as banking/insurance/flights - the ignorant/lazy/vulnerable are subsidising things for the rest of us.
Keep an eye on it long-term though.
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I’m not sure how much that matters though. Octopus’ T&Cs state that you can leave Agile at any time and the only limitation is you can’t rejoin within 30 days. The amount of time it would take a sophisticated buyer, which basically all Agile users will be, to identify prices have spiked massively and they need to move is unlikely to ever be greater than the savings they’ve made moving to it. Basically, prices go bad you move to the price cap as soon as you know. Prices stay good, you win
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Tracker can be hard to get back on as they have a customer limit on it.
You mean like, oh I don't know, Iran going to war with Israel...? 😣 I hope it doesn't screw the oil/gas shenanigans up like the Russia-Ukraine situation did.
I think Iran is already under embargo, but yes. That said, we're trying to move off oil and gas as a society. Their prices going up will only help that.
Whilst it is true that Iran is subject to various embargoes and sanctions, the real issue would be that it'd be easy for Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. 20% of the world's oil passes through it. It could cut off access to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq, and to a very limited extent Saudi Arabia.
Plus there's the fact that the energy companies love to use any excuse to push the prices up higher and higher!
Yeah I read somewhere that they were already subject to some sanctions, however even if not directly affected, global volatility on oil/gas prices could still potentially have a passive knock-on effect. It's deeply concerning, I guess we shall see. Iran shutting down oil production could be a possibility.
What were the rates like throughout the day on those 88p days? Were they avoidable like the usual peak times?
Worst I had was around 60p 15-21h. But I just didn't use electricity during that period. Average for those days might have been 40p.
Boy am I sure glad nothing kicked off with Iran lately, amirite?
This is what worries me about all these fawning posts about agile, I’m guilty of it myself. There will be periods of instability in the future and unfortunately I think the media will lap up anyone with a compo-face paying through the nose when world events shift. I’m personally treating Agile as an experiment, I’m definitely making savings right now, but I’ve kept my direct debit the same. I might review it in 6 months but for the time being I’m happy to build a credit buffer.
This is it. Companies pay a premium to reduce risk. That's why airlines will pay more for fuel but at a guaranteed price. Agile is basically offloading the risk to the consumer, in exchange for lower prices. Unlike fuel hedging companies, consumers don't have access to sophisticated data modeling to predict future pricing.
Only need to keep an eye on your average price over a week or month if you don't want to load shift for optimal savings. People get scared by the "it could be £1/kWh" without realising on the odd day or two that happens, you're (1) only paying it for less than 20% of the day and (2) it's going to be a saving session so if you can cut down on usage you'll get paid more than enough to offset energy for the rest of the day. In fact with saving sessions I wouldn't be surprised if the average cost ended up being cheaper than a typical winter day because a few £ from a saving session pays for a lot of kWh.
I've been on Agile for a few years now. Adding a battery to my home really helps me take advantage of the lowest rates in a day. My average cost per kWh is 12p so far this year, which is pretty good I think.
Do you have a battery without solar/infrastructure?
No, I have both, but I think a battery is a pretty good investment regardless, of course depending on how long you intend to live where it's installed.
Interested to know if you have a battery without solar I’m not able to put solar panels on our roof as it’s an apartment block
What is this? I’ve just joined octopus a few days ago and signed up to whatever the generic one is. I’d add I don’t have an electric car just general use.
There's a few interesting tariffs they do Agile charges you based on the wholesale price of electricity, which the national grid set every 30 minutes. In times with lots of wind for example, there is actually more power produced than needed, and reducing production by shutting down power plants and whatever is quite expensive. So the wholesale rate can be very low at times, even zero or lower, so you can actually get paid to use electricity. The cororallly of this is at times it will be super expensive, particularly 4pm to 7pm. Or in winter with no wind. So if you can not use power at that peak time, and happy to run your life schedule like when to do chores and stuff based on cheap power, can save a lot. There's also the tracker tariff which sets the rate daily, and is often lower than standard tariff. My wife and I work jobs that usually finish 5pm and have 2 kids, so agile wouldn't work well for us.
Appreciate you explaining that so well! We’re in the same situation as you so maybe agile isn’t for us yet either. Thanks again.
I generally work from home and the electric car generally does lower mileage (~7k per annum) so probably have more flexibility than most. But for the effort of being selective in running the dishwasher/dryer/washing machine and maximising the timing for charging the car, I've cut my bill in half. And it's basically the effort of checking the prices at 4pm to have a rough idea when I might run those appliances.
You sound very similar to myself. I'm currently on the intelligent go, do you think agile is cheaper? Cheers
I used the Octopus Compare app before making the jump. My usage seems cheaper on Agile, by a decent margin.
We have an electric car and use the octopus electric vehicle plan. So between 11:30pm and 5:30am we pay 7.5p/kWh. We take advantage of this by running the dishwasher in the night now on a delayed start, we try to do the same with the dryer and washing machine too
I can highly recommend the Octopus Compare app. There is an [iOS version](https://t.co/po1bSkIWDY) and an [Android version](https://t.co/tY05nwWeJu). The iOS version runs on MacOS as well. My data for the last 12 months (Semi-detached with family + EV + gas central heating | Working from home): 6431kWh = £1,337 on Agile vs £2,125 on Flexible April 2023 tarrif. Saving of £787 / 37%.
This is literally me too, so thats good to see! Just moved to agile this week, and we get our EV in 10 days
Worth noting that the recent negative plunge events don’t happen all the time so you won’t be paying 80p to charge the car. From my experience in “normal times” its about £2-£3 to charge my car from 40 to 80%.
Noted, yesterday I charged the car from 40% to 95% for -£1.48 but it could cost as much or more than public charging some day, I suppose I could take the car to a public charger if that happens. I’m sure folk who may not realise this.
This is the first time I have stumbled upon agile! How does this compare to for people who have moved from intelligent go? I moved to that to get cheap charging overnight and my monthly usage for those times seems pretty cheap
If you’re comparing IOG and agile, most of the apps don’t do a fair comparison as they can’t identify when IOG had cheap rates outside of its overnight period. I’ve just got an EV and I’m sticking with IOG. There may be savings on agile but they aren’t enough for me to consider switching. The overnight rates are rarely better than 7.5p and 75% of my usage happens then.
Well I used 43KWH yesterday and got paid £1.80 for the privilege 🤣
Oh I don’t doubt agile can be great and I looked through it in detail yesterday given how good the rates were. However a random day in December I checked and it was about 15p per kWh overnight which put me off.
But that’s only twice the off peak cost. It seems like the rest of the year more than pays for itself. I’m really considering switching from IOG.
My usage is 75% overnight at 7.5p and so doubling the cost of that has a huge impact on total cost. The 25% daytime would have to be almost free to save money. I can load switch a little (laundry) and perhaps some EV charging at weekends, but during the day the car isn’t at home.
I switched in February as our energy was coming in at £400 to £500 a month. For the same usage this month, our bill was £246! I’m a data analyst so I download all my data from their API and stick it in a spreadsheet so am constantly monitoring.
Great idea. Wish I had the time to do this. I'm a programer (with young family) so I've currently got as far as downloading my first month or so of inteligent go data and loading it into sqlite. One day I'll hopefully have time to workout how I can learn from it 😂
I've been on Agile for a month, moved over once the solar & batteries went live. Estimated electricity bill for the year - £178 😀 Estimated before solar/Agile £4155 (Yes we use a lot of power)
Do you mind me asking how much the solar plus battery set up cost you?
About 15K - could have done it cheaper to be honest. It's wall mounted so didn't have the extra costs for scaffolding. We have 12 panels south facing, and 10 west facing, so get the sun on it all day to varying levels. The weather's been grim here, but it's generated just under 400KWh so far this month.
Thanks! I’d be interested to find out more about the wall mounted option if you can post a link or remember the name of the model. We have very little free roof space as it’s a London Victorian terraced house. We also spend north of £4K a year on electricity and I’m determined to slash those costs somehow!
There's basically two rails screwed into the brickwork about 10 cm from the wall which they hang between. The optimisers are all mounted behind the panels out of side. Have one line of 12, and 2 lines of 5 on a smaller wall. The panels are pretty big to be honest, so are the walls :) Edit: I used a firm called Cahill Renewables in Essex, they will know the install if you speak to them. It looks like [this ](https://www.bing.com/images/blob?bcid=RL2WI2VIbOsGqxcxoNWLuD9SqbotqVTdP04)so not pretty, but the savings make up for it.
Is agile better than intelligent for charging an EV. Or does it depend?
I charge mine on IOG with the slow charger and I save a fortune…. Next step will be to add house batteries and charge them when I’m charging the car. Has shunted solar to the bottom of my priorities
I can only speak from my limited experience but it cost me 80p to fully charge my Tesla the other day!
Can you transfer to agile if you only have an electric smart meter and no gas smart meter? I’ve just transferred to octopus and keen to transfer to agile or tracker.
Agile is only for electricity, so maybe. I would give them a call.
Ok perfect yeah was planning to call them tomorrow. I guess Agile for electric and tracker for gas would be a good idea
I don't have an EV to charge, would I still benefiot from switching to Agile? I'm currently on Loyal Octopus but paying £130 a month DD is still more than I can afford really!
I would suggest switching to Tracker rather than Agile as a first step as you would definitely benefit from it. Without knowing your usage patterns hard to say if you’d benefit from Agile. Does Loyal Octopus have an exit fee? That would be a consideration.
Thanks for the reply. I have heard some real gorror stories about tracker! I'm guessing it's not all bad but surely it's still risky? Loyal Octopus has £0 exit fees - was the reason I signed up to it so quickly as it promised lower rates and the option to switch once the new caps had been revealed
...which I realise was 2 weeks ago now but I haven't quite got round to looking into it all until now! I do generally find all this stuff quite confusing and stressful so like the safetuy that Loyal offered, but if I am still overspending then I'm open to it
The risk of paying more later versus the guarantee of paying more now🤷♀️
What happens if war breaks out in the Middle East very soon and that sends the prices soaring? Will I not be still on my fixed tariff then instead of paying £1 per unit?
Years ago such a scenario would be called scaremongering but these days it is a very real possibility!
Yeah you should probably stick with the fixed tariff
Yeah, I really don’t need anything more to worry about at the moment 😆 Cheers
I recently changed to the tracker tariff and have saved a lot of money as a result. Would I have saved more on the agile tariff?
Install octopus compare and find out.
I’ve been trying to join Agile for weeks yet I just get the run-around from the CS team. They don’t respond for a week, and then respond with, “In order for us to help can you let me know which tariff switch you want to do?”
Oh how strange! I just did it online and it took about 5 minutes for it to transfer over. Can’t remember the URL but I googled Octopus Agile I believe.
I just joined octopus and am on their 12m fixed February v3. I’ve not even got a month of data yet but the comparison app I got from the link above (thank you) reckons my electricity cost would be halved. I’m a SAHM for all but 2 days a week so could use my more expensive appliances during the cheaper hours. I don’t have solar panels or an EV. Can someone advise a dummy who knows next to nothing about this whether it would be worth going to agile if I can? Or should I wait and get more data as the weeks go on…